Various robot double hands each having two sets of gripping fingers disposed on opposite sides of a hand body, and capable of being opened or closed, have been proposed to improve the working efficiency of industrial robots. In a typical conventional robot double hand, a pair of gripping fingers are moved slidably in opposite directions along the corresponding side of a hand body for opening and closing operations, and those gripping fingers always project a considerable distance from the hand body. Therefore, the gripping fingers when open are likely to interfere with the work during the approach of the double hand to the work, thus limiting the degree of freedom of the approach motion of the robot double hand toward the work.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a robot double hand for an industrial robot wherein the robot double hand is capable of avoiding the above-mentioned interference of the gripping fingers when the robot double hand approaches the work, so that the degree of freedom of the motion of the robot double hand in approaching a work can be increased.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a robot double hand for an industrial robot wherein the overall width of the robot double hand is narrower when each pair of the gripping fingers are in the open position.